Also, in keeping with Teh Thread Subjiect: We went out to see Mission Impossible last night. It was a good popcorn flick, not particularly memorable, good cast (I really like Simon Pegg), and the stunts were awesome! The motorcycle chase made my motorcycle-riding wife go "EEEK" a lot.

Finally, just to remain consistent, I shall end this paragraph with one more lol.

so all the x files is on netflix here. i generally have a rule against reruns but we've been watching some of the early episodes including the pilot (!)

i got curious and googled mark snow (the guy who does the music) and came up with this article from 1997:http://bit.ly/1V6TBlN

here's an excerpt

ALL GEARED UP

Despite his extensive experience of working with real orchestras, Mark does all the X-Files music at home, in his private studio. "First of all, there isn't the time to do a live orchestra score with this show. The copying, orchestrating, getting the musicians and so on, would be just impossible." Mark's equipment of choice is a Synclavier system: "About six or seven years ago, I got into the Synclavier (with Direct-to-Disk module). That's still my main piece of gear, and I find it the most elegant, fast, best-sounding thing available. People think that it has a 'sound', and it doesn't! It's just a storage device, an architecture and a digital sampler that's so fast and immediate. The sound is what's in the library, what's on the disks. People talk about all of these samplers that cost nothing compared to the Synclavier; well, that's fine, but this is still by far the best. Actually, even if there were months to do each score live, working from here is still preferable, because the Synclavier provides a marvellous collection of regular acoustic instrument sounds, in combination with all the atmospheric, textural things."

But, of course, New England Digital, the company behind the Synclavier, is now no more: "It was unfortunate, but I've had very good luck with my machine: it hasn't broken down too much at all. And now there's a company called Demas, based near the original NED site in New Hampshire, that is offering Synclavier support and software updates. Demas even employs some ex-Synclavier people."

Despite having a Mac in his studio, Mark actually also sequences with the Synclavier, in a linear fashion: "It's not a hugely powerful sequencer, but luckily I don't have to do a lot of dance arrangements or pop things, so it's just fine."

The Synclavier system may be at the heart of the studio, patched through a Soundcraft Sapphyre LC mixer, but that's not it for "MIDI boxes", as Mark refers to them: the studio also accommodates a Roland S760 sampler, Kurzweil MicroPiano module, an Emu Proteus 1, 2 (source of the famous X-Files whistle, in combination, apparently, with a sample of Snow's wife whistling!) and 3, Emu Morpheus, Korg M1R and Wavestation SR. But these are adjuncts to the core sound produced by the Synclavier and its large library: "I have all these great samples on the Synclavier's magneto drives." Mark doesn't do much sampling of his own: "There are so many sample disks available that I have people transfer them onto Synclavier format." And is there anything else he'd like to add to the studio? "Well, the only thing that means anything to me is new sounds or new combinations of sounds. All I care about is if somebody has a great new sound library. That's what I'm looking for. Since my background is music, rather than electronics and technology, I just know as much as I have to. There are so many other composers who know about sampling rates and all that technical stuff, but none of that really interests me. So apart from new sounds, I could maybe upgrade the RAM and the number of voices on the Synclavier..."

I actually prefer reruns. For me, it's nice to be able to go back and see everything. I think as an adult, i have more of an awareness than I had when i was younger (like I never noticed HUGE details) and some of that was due to missing bits and pieces of episodes because I got home late, issues with the VCR etc. usually at work I'll watch something more current on my lunch break.

I started watching the xfiles with my son, but season 1 got a bit much for him, so I quit and then picked it up again. The first season is iconic and after that, will say with out a doubt that the one saving grace to the show is the production values. Once the alien myth and character development took over the show, most of the monster of the week episodes are fluff fan service, copied or influenced by movie / tv show, mirror plots from other x files episodes etc.

Interesting fact, Gilligan did most of the ripping off and even admitted to it several times in interviews about episodes (I like to read the production notes on Wikipedia after watching an episode). Doesn't surprise me in retrospect when after watching breaking bad, I felt like 90% of the show was ripped off 90's drug movie plots. Nearly every episode I was like "i've seen this "

i just wanted to say this rather than being so negative, I'm obviously part cranky old man when it comes to movies and tvs but I'm also just big kid at heart and that's mostly it. I just miss family movies like Big, uncle buck, my giant etc. I want to be entertained, i want something with a little heart to it.. I'm not into being challenged or part of a "target audience".

Event though I do like movies like the expendables and REDS, there's nothing in them I haven't seen before and they're lacking a bit for some reason.

I dunno I'm bored and I've run out of stuff to watch the new gotham is online but i'm not holding out much hope. We had to switch cabl packages and we lost BBC america, so no new dr who. I'll just wait for it to show up on netflix.. I'm better off, all i would do is complain anyway

I understand what you mean, Chris. That's why when I saw "Super 8" I thought it was a great movie, it really reminded me of movies from the early 80s. But I think most people that were born after that don't really get that kind of movie and it's somewhat innocent take on life. So I think it ended up being a flop...

This weekend we had a rare movie watching day. So we watched Love & Grace - the Brian Wilson story. IT was... entertaining, for sure. It was well done. And the funny part is, the parts that don't seem very believable, turn out to be the ones closer to what actually did happen. Recommended mostly for musos (and fans of the Beach Boys of course).

I've gotten so cranky that I don't really bother with TV anymore. I'd much rather surf the Net and see what interesting blogs and stuff I can read. Although, we are bingeing on The Big Bang Theory. Again.

christianrock wrote:I understand what you mean, Chris. That's why when I saw "Super 8" I thought it was a great movie, it really reminded me of movies from the early 80s. But I think most people that were born after that don't really get that kind of movie and it's somewhat innocent take on life. So I think it ended up being a flop...

This weekend we had a rare movie watching day. So we watched Love & Grace - the Brian Wilson story. IT was... entertaining, for sure. It was well done. And the funny part is, the parts that don't seem very believable, turn out to be the ones closer to what actually did happen. Recommended mostly for musos (and fans of the Beach Boys of course).

ElectricPuppy wrote:I've gotten so cranky that I don't really bother with TV anymore. I'd much rather surf the Net and see what interesting blogs and stuff I can read. Although, we are bingeing on The Big Bang Theory. Again.

Same. WITH the notable exception of Wednesday nights - we watch nearly everything that airs: Modern Family, The Middle, Fresh off the Boat, Tosh.0 (except I think they changed that to Tuesday night, but we still watch it on Wednesday night), American Horror Story, and South Park.

Also, that sweet baby cheeses that new South Park epi's are finally airing! The two new ones so far this season have been two thumbs up!